The definition of language:

the means of human communication, consisting of the use of spoken or written words in a
structure way.
Oxford English Dictionary (2006, pp.423)

When looking at language in the wider sense of the word it relates to any means of communication a
person may use to enable them to get their message across, this could be based on visual as well as
audio for example sign language, body language and/or written. Language is adaptable; the type of
language and the way in which we use it generally varies depending on our surroundings, our
environment and who we may be communicating that language to. Power is very often usually
demonstrated and achieved through language; people often use this power in the way they
communicate to enable the receiver to understand quite clearly the power relationship between the
two, for example the way in which a teacher would speak to their pupils would illustrate the power
of responsibility the teacher has other them.

The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (1999) describes power as;
The ability of its holders to exact compliance or obedience of other individuals to their will
This suggests that the persons in possession of the power is in some way in a position to exert the
dominance of their ideas and as a response is then able to coerce the others involved to obey and
then respond. The idea of will which relates to the persons on the receiving end who often finds
themselves in the opposite position or finds themselves in a position where they feel that they may
not have much choice in the matter, signifies the role of power. In other words it could be said that
those holding the power dictate and determine the actions of our behaviour; for example the
knowledge of knowing that if you break the law you could end up getting arrested shows clearly that
the police force holds a role of power. When we talk about power it is important to keep in mind
that it should not always be interpreted as negative. Power can also be used for the benefit of
others, in particular there are some examples of world leaders who despite being in power decided
to use their power for the benefit of their people rather than for their own needs.

In this essay I will be looking at and discussing the relationship between language and power with
reference to a particular language of the world that being English. I will go on to discuss how power
is linked to language throughout the different varieties of the English language. I will then go on to
discuss specific contexts of language and power they are; language and gender and language and
media.

The English language was a dialect of the Germanic branch of Indo-European. During the fifth and
sixth centuries Britain was invaded by Germanic tribes: the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes who

pushed the Celtic speaking population north and west of the country into what is now known as
Scotland, Wales and Ireland. These Germanic tribes all spoke a similar language which was
developed in Britain into what is now called Old English. Old English was spoken up until around
1100. After the England was invaded by the Duke of Normandy in 1066 the Normans introduced a
French language which became the language of the ruling classes, business classes and the
government. By the fourteenth century Middle English brought the English language back as the
dominant speaking language with now many French words added. The sixteenth century saw Britain
having contact with many people across the world leading to many more new words and phrases
being added to the language bringing in Early Modern English. The invention of printing meant that a
common language was now also available in print, bringing about standardization to English and the
growth of British colonial power up to the late 19th century lead to English being spread as a world
language and the development of varieties of English in other countries like North America, Australia
and South Africa. To date English is now an international language which is spoken by more than 400
million people as their first or second language and is still in the process of changing.
Some varieties of the English language are generally different dependant on place; they use
particular grammars, words and accents creating different dialects of English. The rate at which
changes occur is highly affected by the gender and age of the speakers.
At present the English language has many different regional dialects one of which is classed as
standard English. Standard English is the language of the government and is the English that is
taught as correct using correct grammar and avoids slang words and expressions. In England it is
often associated with the Received Pronunciation (RP) which is considered to be a dialect
distinguished by class rather than by region, leading to it also being sometimes referred to as the
Queens English. However as there is no way to distinguish between social or regional linguistics
meaning that regional dialects become social dialects that then get placed in a certain position on
the social scale. (Thomas and Wareing, 1999)
London is built up of many different sociolects, these varieties of English language are linked to
Londons many boroughs and are usually associated with certain social groups. One group which has
spread quite vastly is age. As teenage talk (slang) has become a new way of speaking for the young
it has emerged into a new dialect known as Multicultural London English (MLE). When one dialect
gains a distinguished social position and gets described as correct or proper it is very soon linked
to power and prestige and begins to eliminate those that use the non-standard varieties. This in
itself creates a linguistic class division that can bring upon a power imbalance amongst the ideas
surrounding standard English based on the social and economic relationships of the population at
any particular time and place as well as the ideologies linked to those social conditions.

Throughout my thirty-one years I have encountered many experiences that have shaped my idiolect.
As a single language speaker my experiences with language were influenced by my family and
friends where the only language spoken was English. There were however different accents and
dialects due to my grandparents being from Trinidad and even having grown hearing these I am still
to this day unable to mimic the West Indian accents I grew up hearing.

Having spent all my life In London I find that I speak a combination of standard English and slang,
depending on my situation and who Im talking to I find myself code switching between the two
allowing me to communicate appropriately dependant on my surroundings again illustrating the
importance of how powerful language can be.
When looking at language and power it is useful to explore the power of language in different
settings and discourses as there is a power imbalance in many spheres of our lives and parts of our
societies. If we have the general understanding that with power as the basis and once infiltrated
into a medium of communication it then represents the language offered as being a powerful tool of
that and is very much evident.
One of the most obvious areas where you can see language being used for the purpose of power is
under the area of gender. There are many examples of gender inequality and gender bias in
language and although every language in the world and within their societies have been able to
move forward in addressing this issue not all have been able to get rid of it completely; some of
them have a indistinctively ingrained naturally sexiest language.
Litosselitis (2006: 14-15 citied in Simpson and Mayr 2010, p.16) checklist of areas where the gender
bias becomes apparent will displays the sex specification of terms like actress for a female and
actor for a male, or even the use of the term she when referring to specific objects like cars and
ships is just one of the areas that can be used in confirming this inequality. The terms mentioned
when referring to objects single out gender and draw attention to the sexism reflected in the
language. This is also shown by gratuitous modifiers that draw attention to the differences in sex
and gender in terms used like lady driver and male nurse. These constructions suggest an almost
male dominant outlook for these descriptions. For instance, the term lady driver highlights the
individual sex as if to suggest that this will then display some difference in the level of driving
between genders. With the term male nurse it suggests that society and language used implies that
the term nurse assumes that one is only referring to a female, therefore needing to highlight or
confirm that this is or isnt the case.
Litosseliti (2006: 14-15 cited in Simpson and Mayr, 2010, p.16-17) also refers to semantic
derogation, where over time some of the terms used to describe women have changed from a
neutral to a negative connation. These terms range from words like mistresses to harlot. This area
also highlights the oppositions of sexual connotations such as bachelor in reference to the sexual
behaviour of a man, again noting that if a woman behaved in the same way she would be seen as a
spinster or even a slag. Again highlighting that in many languages especially English, there are
more negative words that denote the sexual behaviour of a woman than those that denote the
sexual behaviour of a man. Within the English language there are many words and terms that
contain pre suppositions about gender and the taken-for-granted attitudes about men and women.

From the 1970s and 1980s, gender and the studies of language were characterised by the
emergence of three schools of thought; deficit, dominance and differences.
In reference to the deficit view of the womens language Lakoffs (1975 cited in Simpson and Mayr,
2010, p.17-18) book; Language and Womens Place, argued that womens weak language reflected

on their subordinate status in society. Lakoff also suggested that womens language was
characterised by lexical disparity, the use of females specific colour adjectives i.e. beige and empty
adjectives like divine, hedges such as sort of, intensifiers i.e. very overly polite forms and milder
swearing expressions like sugar and oh dear.
Taking into account the dominance and difference approaches to language, the gender and power
debate are the two main theoretical positions one aiming to expose the supposed dominance of
men over women through their linguistic behaviour and the other relating the differences to
conversational behaviour mainly to the genders growing up in different subcultures.
Dominance theorist showed concern with the subject of exposing a gender bias in the English
language especially in grammatical form that rendered women invisible, reinforcing many features
of the Litosselitis (2006: 14-15 cited in Simpson and Mayr, 2010, p.16-20) checklist.
These grammatical forms including the generic he man and chairman lexical forms that stereotyped
women such as managers, redhead and derogatory terms such as bitch or slut. Spender (1980) as
cited in Simpson and Mayr (2010) suggests this tradition has been defined by men and, the male
language has been seen as the norm, meaning that all categories, constructed sexism and
justification have been created by males and formed a language trap in their best interest.
To summarise, Spender (1980) as cited in Simpson and Mayr (2010) argued that men have created
labels in certain ways and invested their meaning in terms like motherhood and emasculate.
However women were not deficient, but social order was.
Difference theorist used the approach that in different subcultures men and womens languages
were found to be of equal importance in helping to establish identities in each group separately,
however, when both groups mixed there is a miscommunication between men and women as they
are each used to a specific form and of communication. Therefore, meaning the difference in speech
patterns in their subcultures is what affects the power within the interaction.
In linking this to power and language dominance in gender may have a slight advantage in power
held, whether in conversation or in everyday lifestyles. However, the powerful can easily become
the powerless, given the context of the conversation.

The media plays a huge part in the stereotyping and in widening the gap of inequality within the
English language and other languages, in defining people, particularly women in terms of their social
roles; for example granny and career women are terms that can be used to judge a women more
harshly. The media also singles out women in terms of how they are represented on the basis of
their appearance more so than men. The way language is used in the media is a very important
aspect in the power/potential power that the media holds in how they report about events and
people. When reporting a story the point of view in which it gets reported from can almost instantly
influence the readers opinion of the events they have read about or watched on the television. The
level of language used and the linguistic representation in the media have various linguistic
structures that determine how events are represented, and how they lead to different versions and
views of the same event. For instance Thomas and Wareing (1999) refers to newspaper articles
when reporting about a car bomb explosion in Northern Ireland in 1998, The Daily Telegraph and

The Guardian demonstrated two different approaches on how they interpreted the event, from
their headlines we can see the difference. (Thomas and Wareing, 1999, p.52) The Daily Telegraph, 21
February; 1998 opened with;
Bomb blast after ban on Sinn Fein (Thomas and Wareing, 1999, p.53)
Whereas The Guardian from the same date, reporting on the same event reported;
Ulster bomb new blow to peace talks (Thomas and Wareing, 1999, p.53).
Both headlines use various noun phrases such as : bomb blast, new blow, peace talks. All of
these phrases are immediately eye catching and therefore draws the reader into the writers
perspective of the event. The headline from The Daily Telegraph instantly implies that theres a
relationship between the bomb and the ban imposed of the republican leader Sinn Fein. The
Guardian headline is more about the cause of the event, but looks more directly at after the effects
of the events in reference to the peace talks, that were taking place at that time. This instantly
shows how the use of nouns phrases pin point the direction of how the event is reported. It also
shows how information is interpreted by the media to the public, therefore demonstrating the
power of persuasion through language in the media.
The use of adjectives within each text also highlights the power the media holds when conveying the
event to the wider public.
When describing what happened The Guardian opens with a massive car bomb exploded outside an
RVC police station, the use of the term massive highlights the size of the bomb however it neglects
to inform the reader of the scale of the damage inflicted. Also the use of exploded instantly
identifies what happened meaning that more information is not needed to explain the event,
rendering this usage intransitive. The Daily Telegraphs use of adjectives is the opposite of this,
therefore being transitive. This is shown in the writers use of the terms republican car bomb
automatically insinuating that the Republican Party are responsible for the event. The writer also
uses the word devastated to describe the impact of the event as opposed the facts of the event.
The use of these linguistic forms in the media shifts the power to writer momentarily however the
real power lies with the reader as they have the choices, particularly in society today therefore
meaning that they choose whether to believe the information suggested or whether to form their
own opinions of the said events and subjects.

In conclusion, the relationship between language and power is demonstrated throughout the
various different social factors, the two factors that I have concentrated on within this piece are
language and gender and language and media.
Within these two factors the way in which the English language is used influences the level of power
projected. However as demonstrated above this is no just based on language and power alone. The
wealth, education and social status a particular group or individual holds play a massive part; for
instance the male gender can be seen as the more dominant group but that is only in certain
context, if you were to place a working class male (on an average income) in the company of a upper

class wealthy female the power shift will most definitely move in the favour of the female therefore
it would have been her wealth and status that would have made her the dominant party
Power can be given to a particular social group through their social status and wealth. Language on
its own in society today can only offer you a limited amount of social power. For example I am a
British born working class Caribbean female living in London who only speaks English, a language
that is spoken around the world. London being a diverse and multicultural place, I find at times I
could feel less superior and powerless as non bilingual speaker as well as being a black female.
Which shows that language on its own, not even one spoken in over fifty different countries as its
predominant language does not guarantee power. Also power through language can only really be
achieved through consent by those who are a part of the social groups that have a recognised social
status.